UPCOMING JULY DINNER CLUB
Upcoming Dinner: July
Hostess: Grapes
Friday, June 15, 2012
Weekly Farm Challenge 6/7/12 - 6/14/12
This week we received: a boatload of strawberries, rhubarb, beets, swiss chard, kale, spring greens, green and red leaf lettuces, spinach, and basil. Our monthly dinner provided our main challenge for us and we used our farm ingredient of strawberries, but we did sneak in two other dishes during the week:
Couscous made a small batch of kale chips topped with Parmesan cheese.
And attempted homemade Strawberry Jam!
Next week Grapes vows to work some magic with Greens!!!
June - Strawberry Theme Dinner Club
The gals again were amazing and creative and dinner was berry, berry good!
Grapes presented an unique twist to a traditional bruschetta with Strawberry Ricotta Bruschetta.
The variety of flavors of strawberry, balsamic and arugula were a party in your mouth!
She brought an accompanying Malbec that paired nicely with all those flavors.
Couscous broke out of her comfort zone by making her own pizza dough for a Strawberry, Goat Cheese, Pistachio Pizza. A surprisingly tasty combination that is assembled cold atop of the just baked pizza crust and served immediately.
Saucy shared a wine she picked up many moons ago in Upstate NY, that we detected a taste of flowers and a hint of mustiness - reminiscent of a funeral home! LOL! Eh, you win some, you lose some! You never know until you try!
She made up for it with her dessert - homemade strawberry ice cream with a strawberry crisp! It was a perfect ending to another wonderful night.
(And yes, you must return the ice cream maker!)
While it first seemed strawberries would be an easy ingredient to work with, it ended up being more challenging than we thought, but the end results were fantastic! Another job well done! Stay tune for next month which is going to put us all to the T-E-S-T!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Weekly Farm Challenge 5/31/12 - 6/7/12
We joined a CSA this summer and will now have a weekly challenge to use the ingredients from the farm. (Recipes provided upon request). We must pick something that we received and make a dish with it (edible or not). This week we received: strawberries, rhubarb, swiss chard, spring greens, bibb lettuce, leaf lettuce, spinach, pea shoots and parsley. So, what did our creative girls come up with???
Grapes attempted and conquered rhubarb and strawberries to create a Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler
and it tasted as good as it looks!
Couscous had an excuse for indulging in garlic by preparing Swiss Chard with Garlic and Oregano
Good thing she lives alone - there was ALOT of garlic, but it was yummy!
Saucy also tried her hand at the intimidating tart rhubarb and the beautiful local strawberries to make this Almond, Strawberry, Rhubarb, Banana Bread!
Looks delicious - still waiting for the final tasting report!!
The verdict: "Different but good. It was a tropical morning treat with all the fruit flavors!"
The verdict: "Different but good. It was a tropical morning treat with all the fruit flavors!"
Stay tuned for next week to see what the farm's bounty brings us and what new and exciting dishes we create!
Monday, May 14, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
May - Polish Dinner Club
In honor of her heritage, Saucyski selected Polish as her dinner theme!
Niech jeść (Let's Eat!)
For the first course, Couscouski attempted barszcz, more commonly known as borscht, or simply speaking, beet soup. While borscht may traditionally contain meat, this is a vegetarian version.
*Grapeski graciously shared her Polish facts with rest of us since we neglected to do our homework
(heads hanging in shame).
The most popular name for a dog in Poland is Burek (meaning brownish-grey colour)
Couscouski made every attempt to bring a Polish wine.
Note the following conversation at the wine store:
Do you have any Polish Wines? No, we have Polish vodka
How bout any Eastern European Wines? No, we have Eastern European vodka.
How bout anything ending in ..ski, sky? Snicker, eye roll
Okay, how bout a wine that goes with pierogies? How bout this Pinot Noir....
Saucyski slaved all weekend making traditional pierogies from scratch! Channeling her polish babcia (grandmother) she perfected the staple dish of the old country!
Sauerkraut and cottage cheese
Potato and cottage cheese
Poland has the highest unemployment level in the European Union (12%)
Grapeski was successful in finding an Eastern European wine -
this Bull's Blood from Hungary.
this Bull's Blood from Hungary.
Grapeski also did not disappoint with her dessert - a traditional Polish topielec or poppy seed roll. It involved a unique "drowning" of the dough in a bowl of ice water prior to rolling it out. She had enough dough to also make a date roll that was just as fabulous!
Poles marry the youngest within the European Union - age 24 for women and 26 1/2 for men.
Gratulacje!! (Congratulations) to everyone for successful dinner!! Not only did we try something different, learn something new, but most of all we have carried on a tradition that spans time and countries, whether you understand the language or not: coming together as friends over good food and wine.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
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